


An Ye Harm None

by silentflightfeathers



Series: An Ye Harm None [1]
Category: Kate Daniels - Ilona Andrews, Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Wings, Curses, Dark Magic, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Humans vs. Werewolves, Magic, Magic Apocalypse, Magic-Users, Magical Realism, Post-Apocalypse, Witch Curses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2018-12-21 16:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11947902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentflightfeathers/pseuds/silentflightfeathers
Summary: When the Apocalypse isn't what they said it would be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't really have anything to do with the Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, but it was heavily influenced by it, so I wanted to acknowledge that in the tags. I started wondering what a magic apocalypse might actually be like, and this is what came out of it.

When the Apocalypse hit, I grew wings.

That’s not to say that when the Apocalypse hit, my virtuous life granted me eternity as one of the Heavenly Host. It wasn’t that kind of Apocalypse.

When the Apocalypse hit, wings usually borne on the most fanciful faery art suddenly unfurled from the chrysalis of my back, the delicate membranes shredding the back of my 100% cotton button-down and bursting the clasp of my bra in the middle of a doldrum-infested open floor plan office.

It hurt, too. Just thought I’d mention. People screamed. Lots of people, actually, and at least one began praying for deliverance, crossing himself with his eyes shut tight. I ran, of course- I couldn’t fly, not then, with my faery wings all bloody and wet, the muscles that grew with them not strong enough to hold my weight even for a moment. Later, I understood that while my transformation was the most dramatic, at least three other people in my office disappeared as quickly as I had tried to.

Two turned into wolves and slipped out of the door with the crowd. One turned into a cat, I believe, but I’m honestly not sure if the cat that shows up on my doorstep once in a blue moon actually IS Marianne from four rows down. Cats are cats, you know. Even when they’re usually humans.

Later, as I hid in the apartment I shared with my suddenly-missing roommate, who occasionally left dirt and a few leaves on the carpet but was otherwise nowhere to be found, I watched hysterical newscasters report on the sudden spate of hallucinations- which turned into factual transformations, once they found another winged one to interview, and a lovely newscaster from a British Columbian news station turned into a giant grey wolf during a live broadcast.

That was known as the First Wave, later. The winged one and the lupine Newsie disappeared under mysterious circumstances- by that time I was staying in a cabin in the deep woods, exercising the new muscles in my back. Reports of people disappearing became common. Online forums would have posts like “Have you seen my best friend Jaden? Went missing during the First Wave,” that would eventually be abandoned. The poster would have a new profile picture on Facebook with a shaggy new dog they’d adopted from a local shelter. “Is it a wolf?” “Don’t be ridiculous. Wolves are illegal to own.”

The second wave was slower. There were more reports of predators in the woods around towns (Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, oh my). Fairy lights, will o’ the wisps, swamp gas- there were warnings not to wander into the mists alone, because too many people were going missing. Wiccans, who could previously _maybe_ , on a _very lucky_ day, weave a spell that had some tiny influence on Reality suddenly were reporting the ability to light candles with their breath, to bring luck, to Bring Blessings Upon Thee.

The Apocalypse was not the Judgement of God. The Apocalypse was Magic, and it was merciless.

Pagans and witches, craft-weavers and shamans, they swam in it like water. The good and powerful among them became shelters for those that had transformed in more obvious ways, the winged, the fae-born, the weres. The unscrupulous among them sold charms for protection- that worked. The devilish ones cursed.

The good ones cursed, too, when the hatred began breaking wings, skinning pelts that used to be human, smelting bullets out of iron and silver instead of lead.

Because some Christians- well, they claimed they were Christian, many of them- did to the magic-born as they had done to everyone else who was not White, not Straight, and not Christian. Even though we had been their best friends, their neighbors, their husbands, their children, just months before.

They feared us, so they Hated us, so they Murdered us. And the witches, the wizards, the magic-weavers, their hearts good and brave and stalwart, they became our Shields. Desperate, spells were cast to change people, to turn the darkness back upon them. Drunk with power so long denied them, they wanted to fix the world.

They succeeded, and they died in droves, because Magic is merciless. To change a person’s will, to influence their hearts and minds without their consent- when such a spell is written wrongly, it is a curse, and thrice-rebounded spells stole away the lives of those too angry and those not clever enough to word their weavings properly. Others, infinitely clever and infinitely ambitious, died as martyrs, their magic drained away in weavings too great for any one person to survive. Eventually, people began to understand that such things meant death- and those spells were forbidden. The world was denied the perfection of absolute Peace, but Hate had a harder time killing the weakest of us.

There was always Hate, though, even after the martyrs fell, because we were all still Human. I suspect that is just a lesson Humans will never truly learn. But we did learn Magic, because Magic was suddenly as much of a reality as taxes and rush-hour traffic. Don’t walk into the woods alone, wear silver when the moon is full. Don’t steal pearls from Dragons, don’t eat the food. Don’t kiss the mermaid- or kiss the mermaid, but never wonder how she keeps you breathing until your feet are on dry land again. Beware the Kraken. Leave out milk, or honey, or alcohol. If the fox has more than one tail, be wary. Salt is precious.

Bargain nothing you can’t afford to lose. What ye sends forth returns to thee thricefold. An ye Harm None, do What You Will. That sort of thing.

Me, I just grew wings like you saw on the fanciest Fae, and I learned to fly, and I fed my coworker the cat, and visited my roommate, the Dryad, whose grove eventually overgrew the apartment complex we used to live in. I never went back to my office job- actually, I don't think the office even exists anymore. I avoided the feds long enough for the government to dissolve, be reborn, and dissolve again. I avoided the crazies with their hearts full of fear.  
  
When the Apocalypse hit, I grew wings, and I survived.


	2. Golden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just an announcement for such folks as have bookmarks and subscriptions that this fic is continuing as a series!

So you should check out Part 2 of the An Ye Harm None series: "Golden"   
  
Click through to read it!  
  
My apologies if this is an uncouth way to make this announcement. :/


End file.
